There are rumors swirling this morning that Facebook will acquire Waze. For those unfamiliar, Israeli based Waze is a red hot social navigation app that focuses on traffic conditions among a growing set of features.
If the rumor is true, it makes a lot of sense and is just the next footfall in Facebook’s march towards becoming a …

Though it’s been covered since its release yesterday, we wanted to give a nod to xAd’s latest Mobile-Location Insights Report for Q1, and dive into some of it’s top findings.
The report follows closely behind the Nielsen administered Path to Purchase report which xAd had a key part in, along with Telmetrics. As that study focused on user …

Last week, we made the prediction that Yelp will buy build or partner to bring Vine-like functionality to its mobile products.  This comes in the wake of Yelp’s positive Q1 earnings, and moves by Facebook and Foursquare to compete more directly.
So we’re getting lots of questions about Yelp. There’s a lot to talk about here …

Twitter’s Vine is blowing up for its ability to shoot quick and easy videos. Smartphone saturation and wireless broadband also make it an opportune time. And people are getting creative with the 6 second format.
The ease of use makes me think that we’ll soon see a blooming of vine-type video content in lots of different …

Earlier this week, Placed CEO David Shim notified me that the company’s “Insights” product would be launching today. As we wrote back in October, this is a key piece of the “big data meets local” trend to provide analytics around physical world locations.
In that respect, the best way to think about Placed Insights is comScore …

xAd and Telmetrics today continue their rapid fire series of Path-to-Purchase studies by kicking off the research’s second year.  After doing a study last year and following up with subsequent category drill downs, they launched a UK version. Those past releases can be seen in our coverage.
–Moving Further Down the Path to Purchase
–Telmetrics/xAd Mobile Local …

As promised in our LSA conference coverage last week, here is a deeper dive on Facebook’s positioning and possible directions in local. I covered the topic in a bit more depth in my monthly Search Engine Watch column, including more comments from Facebook director of SMBs, Dan Levy.
This gains relevance in light of Facebook’s redesign …

After writing about Facebook Director of Small Business Dan Levy’s Interview at the Local Search Association Conference yesterday, I’ve been thinking a lot more about FB’s possible directions in mobile and local (more to come on that).
For now, one thing I did was finally update the Facebook app on my iPhone5. I was looking forward to …

To cap off the Local Search Association Conference, Facebook Director of Small Business Dan Levy fielded questions from Greg Sterling on the past, present and future of Facebook’s SMB marketing activity. In short, FB hasn’t actively done much, but lots can be expected.
So far the volume Facebook has reached among SMBs isn’t too shabby. Citing brand …

This afternoon at the Local Search Association Conference in Las Vegas, a panel of mobile ad companies batted around ideas and examples of where they’re seeing efficacy. The panel, moderated by Greg Sterling, included:
Tim Garcia, Vice President, Business Development, Moasis
Dan Hight, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships, xAd
Tae Kim, Head of Channel Partnerships (Multi-Segment), …

Today at the Local Search Association conference, Bob Sanders, President and COO, AXIOM Sales Force Development, zeroed in on some strategies for sales organizations to deal with quickly changing marketplaces.
As was discussed in this morning’s SMB session, it’s a challenging environment to sell local media and advertising. The size of that long tail market has …

To kick off the Local Search Association conference in Las Vegas, we saw lots of data on where SMBs are in the current environment of media transformation, and what it means for providers of local advertising.
Greg Sterling, Senior Analyst, Opus Research
Neal Polachek, Advisor, vSplash
According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, there are 27 …

Following our preview of Telmetrics and xAd’s “Path to Purchase,” UK edition, the data are out today. This is the latest in the ongoing data series that tracks consumer behavior throughout the purchase funnel. There are lots of interesting findings here and in past releases:
–Telmetrics/xAd Mobile Local Data, Take 3: Restaurants
–Telmetrics and xAd Release Second …

We’ve been watching a growing trend in Local Media where advertising providers are facing the SMB “fragmentation” challenge by finding clever back door ways into their wallets.
This isn’t necessarily new but it’s taking on new forms, and finding more fertile ground in today’s mobile environment. One way it’s happening is by offering other services that …

Mobile analytics provider Flurry announced today that it will launch its own real time bidding (RTB) mobile ad exchange known as the Flurry Marketplace.
The new exchange will be integrated with its supply-side platform AppSpot, and reach more than 300 million monthly uniques. Advertisers can bid on billions of impressions per month, segmented by app, app …

Last week we released our mobile local media forecast — one component of a forecast that spans all local ad media. The centerpiece of this mobile portion is the U.S. mobile local ad outlook, going from $1.2 billion last year to $9.1 billion in 2017.
This is a slice of the overall U.S. mobile ad …

At this week’s Leading in Local conference we introduced a new dimension. From now on, we’ll be holding startup competitions in order to invite “new blood” into the atmosphere. This builds from the Future Stars program we launched last year.
This week we had 12 strong companies compete thoughout the first few days of the show …

To close out BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local Conference, Hearst Executive Vice President and BIA/Kelsey conference regular Lincoln Millstein gave a cautiously optimistic view of print media’s future in a brave new mobile and social world.
Brand equity and direct local sales force can’t be ignored, though there’s an admission of complacency in the face of media …

Today at BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local Conference, Google Channel Sales Bus Dev lead Kesh Patel uncovered several aspects of Google’s local efforts. Besides his former life as a 7-11 franchisee (before it burned down), and his first Google role to filter adult content, Enhanced Campaigns stole the show.
This was quite appropriate, as the recent Google …

Last week at BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local Conference, a panel of players in the local deals and loyalty space walked through the biggest opportunities and pain points they’re facing.
Tom Beecher: President and CEO, Cartera Commerce
Angus Davis: Founder and CEO, Swipely
Dom Morea: SVP, First Data
Dom Morea
First Data’s Dom Morea kicked things off by characterizing …